Photo and story by Inday Guapa
 

The impromptu weekend started with a phone call during a lazy Saturday mid-morning, right after Christmas, from Kuya Benjie, who invited us to go with him to visit his adopted Mangyan community in Mindoro in the foothills of Mt. Halcon. Without thinking twice we said yes and in an hour, we were on our way to Batangas to catch the 4:30pm boat to Calapan.

Kuya Benjie, second-cousin to us, is Benjamin Abadiano, the 1st Filipino to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership (2004). This is Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize! such an honor, but very much well-deserved.

In 1988, at age twenty-five, he wandered into Paitan, Mindoro Oriental, where the Servants of the Holy Spirit Missionary sisters worked among the Mangyans. Kuya Benjie volunteered to help and stayed on for nine years. He proposed an education program to emphasize literacy as well as livelihood and leadership skills, and to uphold Mangyan values and traditions.

This became the Tugdaan (Seedbed) Center for Human and Environmental Development. Kuya Benj launched the Center with only twelve students and a small hut, which he shared with them night and day. Soliciting donations from friends in Manila and acting as principal and teacher all in one, he built his small school into a comprehensive learning center with classrooms and meeting halls, a library, science laboratory, preschool, and Mangyan cultural resource center.

In time, it served hundreds of Mangyans of all ages who, at Tugdaan, were encouraged to speak their own language and to wear Mangyan clothing. Kuya Benj learned all he could about them and compiled the first Tagalog-Mangyan dictionary. He recruited new teachers for the Center and raised funds by organizing a business to produce and sell calamansi juice and other local products.

Today, it is training nearly two hundred students and more than half of its teachers are Mangyan.

During our visit we were given a tour of Tugdaan. Tugdaan, meaning seedbed, grew out of the Alangan Mangyan’s dream for a school that is based on their culture. Kuya Benj facilitated the realization of that dream with help from the Holy Spirit Sisters and other partners. It was put up on a piece of grassland at the foot of Mt. Halcon donated by one of the Alangans.

In 1996, the then Department of Education, Culture and Sports National Council awarded Tugdaan with the “Most Outstanding Literacy Program” in the Philippines. Kuya Benj was likewise awarded “Most Outstanding Literacy Worker” and in 2004 awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership. Kuya Benj received 50,000 dollars (about 2.8 million pesos) from the RMA, but did not take a penny from the cash award as a sign of gratitude to the indigenous people, who he transformed as persons by serving them.

He pledged the 30,000 dollars to the Alangan Mangyan college education in the first two years. The rest, 20,000 dollars used to put up a center for volunteerism, side by side with a center for grassroots leadership and with special focus on the indigenous peoples, particularly the Alangan Mangyan.

Although it rained most of the time, we had a fun time going around tugdaan. We stayed at the visitors room, which was adjacent to the principals office. Being in the foothills of Mt. Halcon, we enjoyed fresh mountain air and really cold spring water. We also gave out little foodstuffs for the kids, had them play games and walked the rivers and hills.

We left Paitan with a promise to come back. It would be fun to spend time with these simple but happy people, to share with them what we have and to learn from them too. Kuya Benj is also planning to do the 7-day trek up mount halcon for one last time before old age sets in (hahaha, sorry kuya benj!). He has made the trek several times to visit his beloved mangyan community but hasn’t done so in a long time. I would love to join him in that 7-day trek up mount halcon. However kuya benjie advised me to lose weight first or else the Mangyans will refuse to take me!

(This article first published in the blog Wanderlust in Motion)